Exotic Landscapes and Ethnic Frontiers China's National
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Socioanthropic Studies Vol. 1 (2020) International Journal of Cross-Cultural Studies, 1(1) : 17-30 © Serials Publications EXOTIC LANDSCAPES AND ETHNIC FRONTIERS CHINA’S NATIONAL MINORITIES ON FILM Karsten Krueger This paper presents a seldom known chapter within the general history of Chinese documentary film: the early history of ethnographic film in the People’s Republic of China between 1957 and 1966 - prior to the outbreak of the so-called “Cultural Revolution”. Taking as example the films on the Oroqen, Mosuo and other Non-Han-Chinese ethnic groups–films which were produced during the late 1950s and early 1960s as part of a wider National project–the pre-1966 ethnic identification campaigns-this paper-by way of contextualizing the historical and political background of these early Chinese Ethnographic films, discusses the strategies of filmic representation of the ethnic Other and strategies of ethnographic authentification which are specific for these very early examples of ethnographic documentary film in China. Keywords: China. Ethnographic Film. National Minorities. Authenticity. History of Documentary Film. Introduction Visual media (including ethnographic film) are now an integral part of the canon of ethnographic studies and social and cultural analyses. The American anthropologist Karl Heider (1991) showed in his study of Indonesian cinema how the Indonesian state authorities have used film to help create national consciousness in their multi- ethnic state. In the age of satellite television and affordable video cameras, visual media have become new instruments for forging identity. The same phenomenon holds true for China as for Indonesia. The current political leaders are well aware of the influence of visual media in creating a national identity. Since the founding of the PRC, film as a mass medium, which could be seen by a large populace, even in remote rural areas-small film-teams with a projector were traveling from one village to another showing educational films and news-reels to the village people, thus continuing a tradition which was established centuries ago by opera troupes and ballad-singers-were strategically employed by the leadership to forge political conscienceness and to transmit the correct ideological conception of the world. Film, which was called „Electric Shadows“ by the Chinese, this new technical apparatus, product and medium, was introduced to China at a very early stage. It was Charles Pathé, who showed some films, which were shot by Address for communications: Karsten Krueger is Division of Humanities and Social Sciences, Beijing Normal University- Hongkong Baptist University, United International College,28 Jinfeng Road, Tangjiawan, Zhuhai, Guangdong Province, China, Postal Code: 519085. 18 International Journal of Cross-Cultural Studies a Lumière cameraman on a screening which took place on the 11th of August 1896 in the Xu amusement park in Shanghai (Cf. Kramer 1996: 14). But contrary to the development in the West, it took more than half a century until the first ethnographic films were shot in China. As it is common knowledge, Film was invented over a century ago and ethnographic films have been produced ever since the technological inventions of nineteenth-century industrial society made possible the visual recording of encounters with other societies (Cf. de Brigard 1995). And yet, without exaggeration, the influence of visual anthropology, including ethnographic documentary film, continues to grow day by day, both in a global societal sense, in terms of the ever- increasing importance of audiovisual media in everyday life, and within anthropology itself, due to the increased significance of this discipline. A remarkable improvement in the contextual and technical quality of the products - primarily ethnographic films - has been achieved through improved technical approaches like digital video or multimedia, accompanied by an improvement in international communication since the 1970s. Almost all filmic approaches developed in the realm of Anthropology, whether labeled direct cinema “observational film-making”, or “cinema verité”, or any other approach employing a non-privileged camera style or a more self- reflexive stance in film-making, have to deal with the problem, either explicitely or implicitely, of filmic veracity or ethnographic authenticity. Especially since post-modernist discourse and the critique of master narratives took a firm hold within the humanities and social sciences, deconstruction and cognitive constructivism are discussing the problem of „ethnographic authentication“ (Cf. Loizos 1993:10) and it is therefore also of central importance to theorists and practitioners of Ethnographic film. In the early 1990s, in a seminal essay, the film-maker and theorist Trinh T. Minh-Ha even goes so far, as to question the by now established cannon of Ethnographic film-making i.e. long shots, unity of time and space, hand-held camera, as little editing as possible, synch-sound recording etc., as false allure, as an orthodoxical apotheosis of the literal trope, authenticity“. Or to put it in her own words: A beautiful shot is apt to lie, while a bad shot is a guarantee of authenticity, one that loses in attractiveness but gains in thruth (Trinh 1991: 61). Filmic authenticity and ethnographic authentication is becoming a problem, since the natural taken-for-grantedness of a realist film document as purely authentic and unmediated becomes more and more questionable. Of course, it is exactly this kind of concept of filmic authenticity which starts to be challenged by theorists like Thrinh T. minh-Ha, Bill Nichols, Michael Renov and Brian Winston. Nevertheless traditional Film Studies knows of an authentic version of a certain film text and many film scholars are eagerly working on the production of these historical film texts. Another question, albeit not less philological, is to ask Exotic Landscapes and Ethnic Frontiers China’s National Minorities on Film 19 about the historical source value of a filmic document. By asking this question it is the aim to find systematic methods or models within a general critique of historical evidence. Or to say it in other words, to clarify whether the film material can meet with the expectations additional information (written captions, commentary text, programme information, production information) is trying to provide or what the film context tries to convey. To give but one example: It is “non-authentic” when the german news reel or „Wochenschau“ shows the overtaking and bombardement of a bridge, not showing the explosion of the latter, but cutting in the explosion of a factory workshop, because the explosion of the bridge happened too quickly and the cameraman was killed while performing his job. In general all compilation films and news-reels are measured against this ideal of authenticity. Until recently it was generally agreed upon that in order to give an authentic image or representation the documentary filmmaker only has to film what is in front of his/her eyes, what is already „out there“, without any medial arrangement of the reality in question, at the same time refusing all sorts of inscenatory staging which are common in fictional film. Following this concept, developed in orthodox documentary filmmaking, the authenticity of a documentary film scence argues for the representation of an action or event, which would have happened in exactly the same way, if no camera had been present to put this event into its filmic representational context. It is the ideal of an unobstructed, direct filmic represenation of a realty which is expressing itself almost immediately in indexical terms on the film or TV screen extending seamlessly from a pro-filmic event to what is captured in the frame of the camera. Another aspect of the meaning of the attribute “authentic” is not directly referring to the praxis of the documentary filmmaker. It may make sense to speak of an authentic scene or filmic document if the film’s protagonist who most of the time is a non-professional, in the very moment of “acting“ or behaving in front of the camera is not constantly aware of her own visual representation or what she might mean to the audience. This of course has something to do with social drama, and it were the filmmakers belonging to the “Direct Cinema” tradition e.g. Frederick Wiseman, the Maysles brothers, Richard Leacock and Richard Pennebaker amongst others, who were exactly choosing these social situations which developed according to a certain intrinsic socio-psychological structure. The expectations of the audience is crucial in this context. Only when a film is able to trustworthy claim that it is following the above mentioned ideals will it be treated as belonging to this historical established canonical register and the audience will recognize the film as being part of the genre „documentary film“. Only in the very moment of a film´s reception by an audience can this film live up to the trust which the audience is investing in it. It can win the audience, only by inscribing it’s very integrity into the film text proper. Of course, nowadays, in the 20 International Journal of Cross-Cultural Studies age of mockumentary and fake documentaries, it is ever more harder to achieve this recognition and the genre boundaries between fiction and non-fiction films are getting increasingly blurred. Recently, poststructuralist theories of documentary filmmaking under the influence of semiopragmatics, cognitive semiotics and cognitive film theory,